F.1 Installing and Using Oracle Components in Different Languages

F.1.1 Configuring Oracle Components to Run in Different Languages

You can specify the language and the territory, or locale, in which you want to use Oracle components. The locale setting of a component determines the language of the user interface of the component and the globalization behavior, such as date and number formatting. Depending on the Oracle component, the locale of the component is either inherited from the operating system session that started the component, or is defined by the NLS_LANG environment variable.

The operating system locale usually influences Oracle components that are based on Java technology. The NLS_LANG environment variable usually influences Oracle components that use Oracle Client libraries such as OCI.

Note:

The user interface of an Oracle component will be displayed in a selected language only if the appropriate translation is available and has been installed. Otherwise, the user interface will be displayed in English.

F.1.1.1 Determining the Operating System Locale by Using the LANG Environment Variable

The locale setting of your operating system session determines the language of the user interface and the globalization behavior for components such as Oracle Universal Installer, Oracle Net Configuration Assistant, and Oracle Database Configuration Assistant. It also determines the globalization behavior of Oracle Database sessions created by a user application through Oracle JDBC driver, unless overridden by the application.

The operating system locale on AIX is determined by the value of the LANG environment variable. Depending on your desktop environment, such as KDE, GNOME, or telnet, you can select a default session locale on a login screen, in a configuration panel, or in a configuration file.

Note:

Refer to the operating system documentation on how to select a locale for the operating system session in your desktop environment.

You can modify the LANG variable in the environment of your shell to start an Oracle component in a selected language. For example, to start Oracle Database Configuration Assistant in German, enter one of the following commands:

Bourne shell (sh), or Korn shell (ksh), or Bash shell (bash):

$ LANG=de_DE.iso88591 dbca

C shell (csh):

% (setenv LANG de_DE.iso88591; dbca)

Note:

The LC_ALL environment variable overrides the value of the LANG environment variable. For the commands listed in the following section to work, either ensure that the LC_ALL environment variable is not set in the environment, or substitute LC_ALL for LANG.

To modify the operating system locale for all Oracle components started from now on by the given shell, modify the LANG variable using one of the following commands:

Bourne shell (sh), or Korn shell (ksh), or Bash shell (bash):

$ LANG=de_DE.iso88591; export LANG
$ ...

C shell (csh):

% setenv LANG de_DE.iso88591
$ ...

The value of the LANG environment variable must be a valid operating system locale. To see the list of valid locales, enter the following command:

$ locale -a

Note:

Refer to the operating system documentation for a mapping between values of the LANG environment variable and the languages and territories that they represent.

F.1.1.2 Configuring Locale and Character Sets by Using the NLS_LANG Environment Variable

The NLS_LANG environment variable determines the language of the user interface and the globalization behavior for components such as SQL*Plus, exp, and imp. It sets the language and territory used by the client application and the database. It also declares the character set for entering and displaying data by the client application.

The NLS_LANG environment variable uses the following format:

NLS_LANG=language_territory.characterset

In this format:

language specifies the language used for displaying Oracle messages, sorting, day names, and month names

In most cases, this is the Oracle character set that corresponds to the character set of the user terminal or the operating system.

The NLS_LANG environment variable is set as a local environment variable for the shell on all UNIX-based platforms. For example, if the operating system locale setting is en_US.UTF-8, then the corresponding value of NLS_LANG environment variable is AMERICAN_AMERICA.AL32UTF8.

F.1.2 Installing Translation Resources

To view the user interface of Oracle components in different languages, you must install the appropriate language translations along with the component.

Note:

Part of Oracle Database Vault user interface text is stored in database tables in the DVSYS schema. By default, only the English language is loaded into these tables. You can use Oracle Database Vault Configuration Assistant to add more languages to Oracle Database Vault. For the necessary steps, refer to Appendix C in Oracle Database Vault Administrator's Guide.

On the Language Selection screen, select the language in which you want to use Oracle components from the Available Languages field.

Note:

The Available Languages field lists all languages supported by Oracle globalization libraries. The set of languages for which a translation is actually available is usually smaller and depends on a particular component. The scope of translation for a given component may differ between languages. For example, some translations may include all user interface text, while others may include only error messages and no help files.

Use the > arrow to move the selected language to the Selected Languages field, and then click OK.

Note:

Oracle Universal Installer will ignore languages in the Selected Languages field for which no translation is available.

Select the installation type you want, and then click Next.

Note:

To install additional languages for a component, you will have to reinstall this component.

F.2 Running Oracle Universal Installer in Different Languages

Your operating system locale determines the language in which Oracle Universal Installer runs. Oracle Universal Installer may run in one of the following languages:

Brazilian Portuguese (pt_BR)

French (fr)

German (de)

Italian (it)

Japanese (ja)

Korean (ko)

Simplified Chinese (zh_CN)

Spanish (es)

Traditional Chinese (zh_TW)

To run Oracle Universal Installer in one of the available languages, change the locale in which your operating system session is running before you start Oracle Universal Installer with the ./runInstaller command. If the selected language is not one of them listed earlier, Oracle Universal Installer runs in English.

You need to ensure that the selected value for the LANG environment variable starts with the appropriate language abbreviation. In the aforementioned list of languages, in which Oracle Universal Installer can run, the required abbreviation appears in parentheses beside the language name. For example, fr_FR and fr_CA are valid values to run the Oracle Universal Installer in French.

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